Nathan Bindoff

Head, Oceans and Cryosphere Program, IMAS

How has the earth changed? Why has the earth changed? What does it mean for the future? Professor Nathaniel Bindoff is one of the world's leading climate change scientists, and he's helping to answer these questions. His area of expertise is physical oceanography.

Global warming is unequivocal

'When I commenced my career, the question of whether the ocean state had changed was completely open. It was a voyage of discovery,' said Professor Bindoff.

He has been studying signals of change in the ocean, like oxygen levels, temperature and salinity, from measurements from the 1970s to the present. He is now one of the lead authors contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that are informing world leaders on climate policy.

'I like doing relevant science and I like storytelling. Being able to answer important questions on behalf of society is a privilege. Being able to articulate that story, by converting the scientific observations into usable information for the basis of policy decisions, is vital.'

Professor Bindoff was the coordinating lead author on the oceans chapter in the fourth IPCC assessment report and the detection and attribution chapter in the fifth IPCC report. He was awarded a certificate for his contribution to the IPCC and Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. The 2007 report marked the turning point in discussion on climate change globally.

The IPCC reports provide an assessment of the science that relates to climate change globally. A summary document is then prepared for policy makers, with each line agreed on by 110 nations.

Professor Bindoff and his colleagues developed the famous statement 'Global warming is unequivocal.'

'We now know that an increase in greenhouse gases due to human activity has changed the planet. The result is a rise in temperatures globally and an accelerated water cycle in the atmosphere. The oceans are our best source of evidence for these changes. We can estimate what the temperature rise will be. We also know what we need to do to keep within a safe range. Essentially, the scientific problem is solved.'

'We think a 2° rise in temperatures is safe enough for most things. This was built into the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) back in the 1990s. But if the temperatures rose by 3°or more, sea levels could rise by 3–4 meters and Greenland could disappear. There would be at least a 20% increase in fire danger and catastrophic fire events would be more likely to occur,' said Professor Bindoff.

The IPCC reports provide the foundation for discussions amongst the world's governments. The discussions result in commitments to keep greenhouse gas emissions within the safe range.

The University of Tasmania is the epicenter for climate change research in Australia and has led the world in many areas of this research. Hobart is home to three coordinating lead authors of the IPCC reports, more than any other city in the world.

Professor Bindoff said that the polar regions are where the greatest changes are happening. 'We're in an ideal position to do great science on that.'

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Professor Bindoff is a physical oceanographer. His focus is on detecting
and understanding the causes of change in the oceans. He was the coordinating
lead author for the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports from the
Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. He led the oceans chapter (2007)
and the detection and attribution chapter (2013). Nathan is one of just a few
scientists who have been a coordinating lead author twice and contributed to
the IPCC winning the Noble Peace Prize in 2007, shared with Al Gore. His
research has involved documenting the first evidence for changes in the Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific and Southern Ocean's, and the
earth's hydrological cycle from ocean salinity. His most recent work is on
documenting the decline in oxygen content of the oceans and projecting the
future climate over the Australian continents and impacts. All of these global
changes have been attributed to human activity.

Career summary

Qualifications

1983 BSc (Hons.), University of Tasmania

1989 PhD, Electromagnetic induction by oceanic sources in the Tasman Sea, Australian National University

Research Themes

Professor Bindoff's research aligns to the University's research theme of Antarctic and Maritime. His research interests involve physical oceanography and ocean dynamics, including signal signals of change in the ocean, such as oxygen levels, temperature and salinity.

Collaboration

Professor Bindoff currently collaborates with the group at the National Oceanographic Centre (UK) on ocean mixing, with the University of Rhode Island on Southern Ocean Eddies and Meanders. He is also collaborating with the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, looking at assessments of climate change in the oceans, and the cause of these changes. This is a collaboration of more than 100 scientists.

Wong APS, Bindoff NL, Church JA, 'Freshwater and Heat Changes in the North and South Pacific oceans between the 1960s and 1985-94', Journal of Climate, 14, (7) pp. 1613-1633. ISSN 0894-8755 (2001) [Refereed Article]

Grants & Funding

Funding Summary

Number of grants

74

Total funding

$177,855,538

Projects

How does a standing meander southeast of Tasmania brake the Antarctic Circumpolar Current? (2018)$0

Description

Request for 32 days at sea on the Marine National Facility RV Investigator to conduct physical oceanography observations to investigate why the Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport has not increased despite a 20-year trend of increasing westerly winds over the Southern ocean. This voyage is to support the pending ARC Discovery Project DP170102162 submitted by Bindoff and colleagues.

The aim of this project is to observe and simulate the mechanisms that put the brakes on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The Southern Ocean winds have increased over the last two decades while the transport of the worlds largest current remains steady or slightly decreasing. This is a perplexing observation. New negative feedback mechanisms between the winds and transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current have been advanced. This proposal addresses this critical issue in the momentum and energy balance of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current by directly observing how the eddies carry momentum from the wind down to the sea floor and accelerate the deep currents that drag against the rough bottom to put the brakes on this current.

We will address the formidable challenge of understanding and predicting climate extremes for Australia. Via acritical mass of researchers, new data, innovative modelling, collaboration, a graduate program, and early careerresearcher mentoring we will transform Australias capacity to predict climate extremes. Annually, climateextremes now cost Australia up to $4 billion but may intensify over the coming decades. Our blue-sky researchwill focus on discovery of processes that explain the behaviour of present and future climate extremes. Our impactand legacy will be assured via partnerships with key sectors of the Australian economy and discoveries thatenable evidence-based planning for extremes that will enhance national resilience.

Development of high priority tools and research products to enable protection of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) from adverse impacts of wildfire.

Funding

Department of Environment and Energy (Cwth) ($100,000)

Scheme

Grant-National Environmental Science Prgm (NESP)

Administered By

University of Tasmania

Research Team

Remenyi TA; Bindoff NL; Harris R; Love PT; Fox-Hughes P

Period

2017 - 2018

Inflows to Tasmania's Hydro Generation Catchments (2016)$30,000

Funding

Hydro Tasmania ($30,000)

Scheme

Consultancy

Administered By

University of Tasmania

Research Team

Bindoff NL

Year

2016

Analysis of the impact of climate change on weather-related fire risk factors in the TWWHA, TWWHA01/16 (2016)$95,000

Description

The provision of those services is required to improve the States understanding of how climate change will impact on bushfire risk in the Tasmanias Wilderness World Heritage Areas (TWWHA) and further, to improve the States knowledge base for management of bushfires and prescribed burning regimes under a changing climate.

The project will assess the impact of climate change on Australia's wine industry, and provide information to assist Australian grape growers adapt to a changing climate. The project will:I. provide high resolution climate information in an accessible and useful form to the wine regions of Australia;2. develop region-specific indices of "heat wave";3. develop variety-specific indices of heat accumulation (GDD);4. report the changes in these indices between current and future periods;5. report changes in precipitation and potential evapotranspiration between current and future periods;6. identify new varieties that could be planted in each region as the climate shifts, including varieties not currently grow1in Australia;7. estimate the temperature threshold at which returns from different varieties may diminish in different regions andidentify the point at which a transition to alternative varieties may be needed;8. identify regionally relevant adaptation options in addition to variety switching;9. identify the relationship between relevant climate variables and large scale climate drivers such as El Nifio-SouthernOscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation;10. report changes in the frequency and intensity of the large scale climate drivers under future climate change.

A reanalysis is a consistent reconstruction of the state of the atmosphere through time. This data allows users to compare weather parameters such as wind, rainfall or temperature (or derived quantities such as fire danger) through time and across the area of the reanalysis, and provides a complete description of the weather in the reanalysis domain. This project will generate a reanalysis dataset for Tasmania at 1.5 km grid spacing with hourly time steps for a 25-year period, producing a high-resolution meteorological and climatological data to inform emergency management and disaster risk activities in Tasmania. The Bureau of Meteorology has agreed to produce the reanalysis for Tasmania for ACE CRC, forming part of a wider project that will generate a nationwide Australian reanalysis product at a lower 12 km resolution. In the first phase of the project (Stage 1), the Bureau of Meteorology will provide a 5-year high-resolution NWP climatology for Tasmania at a spatial resolution of about 5 km and at an hourly time step. Both ACE CRC and the Bureau of Meteorology will then provide the 25-year high-resolution reanalysis at 1.5 km resolution for Tasmania (Stages 2 and 3) if the Tasmania State Emergency Service provides the required additional funding in 2016 and again in 2017.Project partners will evaluate the dataset, both at the broad scale and for specific sub-regions and time periods in considerable detail to ensure the quality of the data, with the resulting approximately 70 terabytes of data stored by TPAC. Partners will engage with stakeholders to highlight the implications of the results for emergency management in Tasmania. On completion, project and technical reports will be presented, and peer-review journal articles prepared.

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Victorian Alpine Resorts - Stage 1: Impact of Investing in Snow Making (2015)$15,860

Description

1.A literature review of Australian and international research into the economic viability of snow-making under climate change;2.An overview of the changes projected to occur in mean temperature, precipitation and snow over the Australian Alps region, based on the new projections;3.Updating the model developed, as a part of the Landscapes and Policy Hub, by Dr Lee and Prof Tisdell, to include new 2013 and 2014 data;4.Report on the major findings of Dr Lee and Prof Tisdells work analysing the impact of snow making on visitation patterns on a yearly basis;5.Provision of the updated model as an R script (for use by the ARCC); and6.Extraction of sub-daily data for variables used in calculating snow making conditions (Stage 2).

An assessment of the economic viability and impact of investing in snow making in the Victorian alpine resorts in the context of the potential impacts of climate change.

Funding

Alpine Resort Co-ordinating Council ($35,690)

Scheme

Contract Research

Administered By

University of Tasmania

Research Team

Harris R; Remenyi TA; Bindoff NL

Year

2015

Turbulence and mixing in the Southern Ocean (2015)$0

Description

The Southern Ocean plays a key role in the global ocean circulation and climate. This is, to a large extent, owing to turbulent motions at a wide range of scales from mesoscale eddies at 10-100 km to internal wave breaking at 10-100 m scales. Turbulent motions enhance stirring and mixing of tracers and hence facilitate the uptake, transport, and storage of heat, carbon, and nutrients in global ocean. Topographic features, such as ridges and abyssal hills, effectively catalyse the generation of turbulent motions, creating localised hot spots of eddy stirring and turbulent mixing. The Southern Ocean turbulent processes remain poorly understood and inadequately represented in global models.The goal of this project is to explore turbulent processes in regions of major topographic features in the Southern Ocean and to improve their representation in global ocean and climate models.

An assessment of the viability of prescribed burning as a management tool under a changing climate (2015 - 2016)$130,000

Description

The project will investigate three aspects that could affect the viability of prescribed burning under climate change.1. Changes in the seasonality of factors that determine when prescribed burning can be applied;2. Changes in the frequency and seasonality of daily weather patterns related to prescribed burning;3. Changes to broad vegetation types caused by the interaction between climate change and frequency of burning (natural or prescribed).

Tasmania suffers from natural disasters consistent with its climate and geographical location. Historical records show that natural disasters in Tasmania have a significant impact in terms of loss of life, property and infrastructure. In 2012, the State Emergency Service (SES) Tasmania produced the states first comprehensive natural disaster risk assessment report - the Tasmanian State Natural Disaster Risk Assessment (TSNDRA). The report was based on the National Emergency Risk Assessment Guidelines (NERAG). A revision of the TSNDRA 2012 report has been identified by the State Government as a priority project for Tasmania in 2015. This report will build upon the 2012 TSNDRA report and identify both existing and newly identified hazard-specific gaps. A series of hazard-specific workshops will be held, including flood, bushfire, storm and landslide, as well as other hazards such as coastal, biosecurity and pandemic that were identified but not covered in TSNDRA 2012. The project will provide Tasmania with a revised state-wide natural disaster risk assessment in line with the new NERAG guidelines and across the full range of sources of uncertainty. A public version of the report will be produced, together with a summary report and fact sheets. This report will become an invaluable resource for natural hazard risk assessment and hazard risk management practitioners, and those involved in natural hazards mitigation and policy at all levels of government and emergency management. The project will also include the provision of an updated High Level Risk Treatment Plan for the State Emergency Management Committee (SEMC) to enable them to work with agencies across Tasmania to inform strategies to successfully mitigate the states current and future vulnerability to natural disasters.

A reanalysis is a consistent reconstruction of the state of the atmosphere through time. This allows users to compare weatherparameters such as wind, rainfall or temperature (or derived quantities such as fire danger) through time and across the area of the reanalysis, and provides a complete description of the weather in the reanalysis domain. The Department of Environment and Primary Industry (DEPI), Victoria, commissioned the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Nevada, to create a reanalysis for Victoria, with a resolution of 4 km and 1 hour. A Tasmanian project would leverage off the experience, and some of the background data, of the Victorian reanalysis. The project will generate a reanalysis dataset for Tasmania at 3 km grid spacingwith 1 hour time steps for 1980-2014. Project partners will evaluate the dataset, both at the broad scale and for specific sub regions and time periods in considerable detail to ensure the quality of the data, with the resulting approximately 70 terabytes of data stored by TPAC. A user interface will be constructed for data access, and partners will engage with stakeholders to highlight the implications of the results for emergency management in Tasmania. On completion, project and technical reports will be presented, and peer-review journal articles prepared.

This project will enhance the uptake and use of the Marine Virtual Laboratory through better connectivity to models and data services and through the provision of additional datasets, thereby creating opportunities for improving the research environment of the shelf and coastal marine science community.

Funding

Department of Education and Training (Commonwealth) ($547,700)

Scheme

Grant-NeCTAR Virtual Laboratory Program

Administered By

University of Tasmania

Research Team

Bindoff NL

Period

2014 - 2016

Leeuwin Current Model Analyses (2013)$32,727

Description

The project involves two key tasks: finalise a manuscript on the 2011 marine heat wave based on existing ROMS model simulations of the Leeuwin Current variability; analyse ROMS downscaling model simulations and finalise a section in a FDRC project report on the future changes of the Leeuwin Current.

Observations of remarkable eastward flows in the South Indian Ocean (2013 - 2015)$480,000

Description

The Indian Ocean drives much of the variability of Australian weather and rainfall and is rapidly evolving. Innovative new observations of remarkable eastward flows in the South Indian Ocean will be combined with models to understand these circulations in a region that has significant economic value for Australia.

The aims of this project are to provide up-to-date climate change information at the appropriate scale and format, and to provide the capacity to apply this information effectively and appropriately in the regional NRM planning processes.

Research Supervision

Since 1995, Professor Bindoff has supervised nineteen PhD students, who completed their degree programs in a range of topics in physical oceanography. Many of these students have won awards for their work, including papers in the Tasmanian Royal Society prize for a Nature paper on salinity changes in the ocean, two students respectively for an AMOS and AMSA conference paper, and one for the Uwe Radok prize from AMOS.

Seventeen of Professor Bindoff's students have gone on to become research fellows and lecturers, and others are associate professors, or work at the Bureau of Meteorology. Some of his students have joined the Royal Dutch Shell, Kiwi Rail, and two further consolidated their careers by respectively receiving an ARC Future Fellowship and a ARC DECRA. One of Professor Bindoff's MSc students had this review comment: 'The
thesis is impressive – any work for an MSc that consists of 3 published and 2
submitted papers is nothing but outstanding'.

Current

13

Completed

21

Current

Degree

Title

Commenced

PhD

Ocean Temperature and Salinity Responses to 50 Year Changes in Surface Conditions

2011

PhD

Ocean Deoxygenation: A paleo-proxy perspective

2013

PhD

Ocean Deoxygenation: A paleo-modelling perspective

2014

PhD

The response of Antarctic sea ice to anthropogenic climate change, from model and satellite observations

Eastward Flows, Ocean Mixing and Air-Sea Interaction in the Southeast Indian Ocean

2015

PhD

Fine Scale Ocean Processes Driving the Basal Melting of Ice Shelves

2016

PhD

Towards Improved Modelling of the High Southern Latitudes

2016

PhD

Detecting Human Influence in Global Ocean Salinity Patterns

2016

PhD

How do Standing Meanders Brake the Antarctic Circumpolar Current?

2016

PhD

The Impact of Recent Indian Ocean Warming on the Circulation, Watermass Distribution and Air-Sea Interaction in the Indian Ocean

2016

PhD

An Observational Study of the Role of Standing Meanders in Slowing the ACC and Transporting Heat to Antarctica

2017

Completed

Degree

Title

Completed

PhD

Remarkable Near-surface Eastward Flows in the South Indian Ocean: Understanding the dynamical links between the Indian Ocean subtropical gyre, Indonesian throughflowCandidate: Viviane Vasconcellos de Menezes

2015

PhD

Diagnosing the Relation Between Ocean Circulation, Mixing and Water-Mass Transformation from an Ocean Hydrography and Air-Sea FluxesCandidate: Sjoerd Groeskamp

2015

PhD

Ekman Currents in the Antarctic Circumpolar CurrentCandidate: Christopher John Roach

2014

PhD

Diapycnal Mixing and the Internal Wavefield North of the Kerguelen PlateauCandidate: Amelie Meyer

2014

Masters

Impacts of Future Climate on Tasmanian RiversCandidate: James Clement Bennett